Oxford Scholarly Editions Online Euripides, Medea (431 BC): Medea James Morwood (ed.), Oxford World's Classics: Euripides: Medea; Hippolytus; Electra; Helen Published in print: 1998 Published online: May 2017

The action takes place outside MEDEA'S house in Corinth. The NURSE comes out of the house.

NURSE. How I wish that the Argo had not flown through the dark Clashing Rocks on its sea-journey to the Colchians' land—that the pine had never fallen, hewn amid the glens of Mount Pelion, and furnished oars for the hands of those heroic men who went to win the golden fleece for Pelias.* Then my mistress Medea would never have sailed to the towers of the land of Iolkos, her heart unhinged in her love for Jason, she would not have persuaded the daughters of 10 Pelias to kill their father* and would not now be living with her husband and children* in this land of Corinth, gladden- ing the citizens to whose country she has come in her exile, a woman totally in accord with Jason himself. And this is the greatest security of all—when a wife is not in dishar- mony with her husband. But now hatred has corroded everything and dearest love grows sick. Jason has betrayed his own children* and my mistress and beds down in a royal match.* He has married 20 the daughter of Creon who rules this land. Unhappy Medea, thus dishonoured, cries out, 'His oaths!', invokes that weightiest pledge of his right hand, and calls the gods to wit- ness how he has repaid her. She lies there eating nothing,

...... pg 2 surrendering her body to her sorrows, pining away in tears unceasingly since she saw that her husband had wronged her. She will not look up, will not lift her face from the ground, but listens to her friends as they give advice no more 30 than if she were a rock or a wave of the sea—save that sometimes she turns away her pale, pale neck and bemoans to herself her dear father and her country and the home

Page 1 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 which she betrayed to come here with the man who now holds her in dishonour. Schooled by misfortune, the poor woman has learnt what it is to be parted from one's father- land. But she hates her children* and feels no joy in seeing them. I am afraid that she may be planning something we do not expect. Her temperament is dangerous and will not tolerate bad treatment. I know her, and I fear that she may 40 go silently into the house where her bed is laid and drive a sharpened sword into their heart, or even that she may kill the princess and the bridegroom and then meet some greater disaster. For she is fearsome. No one who joins in conflict with her will celebrate an easy victory. But here come the children. They've stopped running their races.* They take no thought for their mother's sorrows. A youngster's mind makes no habit of grieving.

The TUTOR enters with MEDEA'S two children.*

50 TUTOR. Ancient servant of my mistress's house, why are you standing on your own like this at the gates, bewailing your sorrows to yourself? How comes it that Medea is willing to be left alone without you? NURSE. Old attendant of the children of Jason, good slaves are sympathetic when their owners' fortunes fall out badly— their hearts too are affected. I have come to such a pitch of distress that a longing swept over me to come here and speak of my mistress's woes to the earth and sky.* TUTOR. Has not the wretched woman yet ceased from her laments? 60 NURSE. You are in blissful ignorance. Her sorrows are at their outset, not yet halfway run. TUTOR. Poor fool—if one may speak of one's mistress like that. She knows nothing of her more recent sorrows.

...... pg 3 NURSE. What is it, old man? Don't refuse me an answer. TUTOR. Nothing—I am sorry I said even that just now. NURSE. I entreat you by your chin,* do not keep this from your fellow-slave. I'll cloak this matter in silence if I must. TUTOR. When I came to the place where the old men sit play-

Page 2 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 ing draughts,* by the sacred waters of Peirene,* I eaves- dropped and heard someone saying that Creon, the ruler of 70 this country, is intending to drive these children with their mother from the land of Corinth. I do not know if this infor- mation is true. I hope it isn't. NURSE. And will Jason allow his children to suffer this fate— despite his quarrel with their mother? TUTOR. Old ties take second place to new ones, and that man is no friend to this house. NURSE. It is all over with us then if, before we have seen out our first disaster, we must now shoulder this new one too. 80 TUTOR. But you must keep silence—not a word: it is not the right time for our mistress to know this. NURSE. O children, do you hear how your father is behaving towards you? Curse him—but no, he is my master. Yet he stands plainly convicted of being a traitor to his friends. TUTOR. But is anyone different? Are you only now realizing that everyone loves himself more than his neighbour, some justifiably, others simply to improve their situation—seeing that their father no longer loves these children because of his new marriage?* 90 NURSE. Go inside the house, children—all will be well. As far as possible keep these boys on their own and don't bring them near their mother in her depression. For I saw her eye just now glinting at them like a bull's* as if she meant to do something to them. And she will not give up her rage—I know it clearly—before she swoops down on someone. But may she choose her enemies for some mischief, not her friends.

MEDEA [chants off-stage]. Oh, how unhappy I am, how wretched my sufferings— Oh, woe is me, I wish I could die! NURSE [chants]. That's what I meant, dear children. Your mother

...... pg 4 stirs her heart, stirs her rage. 100 Hurry quickly into the house and do not approach near her sight, but be on your guard against her wild character, the hateful temper

Page 3 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 of her wilful mind. Go now, go quick as you can inside. It is plain that soon she will make the cloud of her laments which now begins to gather flash forth as her passion grows. Her heart is full of spirit, not easily to be soothed— 110 stung by these injuries, whatever will she do? MEDEA [chants]. Aiai. I have suffered in my wretchedness, suffered woes which call for great laments. O accursed children of a hateful mother, may you die with your father, may the whole house fall in ruin.* NURSE [chants]. Alas, I say. O, the cruel woman! What share do you think your boys have in their father's wrong-doing? Why hate them? Alas, chil- dren; how I grieve for you in my fear that some suffering may await you. Our royal masters have dangerous spirits* and, perhaps because 120 they are subject to little control while their power is great, their moods veer violently. To accustom oneself to live on equal terms with others is preferable. For my part, as long as my old age is secure I shall be happy if it is far from greatness. For first, I say, the name of Moderation* has a better ring than that of Greatness, and in experience it proves by far the best for men— while Excess brings no profit to mortals and, when the god has grown angry with the house, 130 it pays the penalty of greater ruin.

The CHORUS OF CORINTHIAN WOMEN enters.*

CHORUS [chants]. I heard the voice, I heard the cry of the wretched woman from Colchis. Is she

...... pg 5 not yet calm? Tell me, old woman. For I heard her laments inside her house through its double door.

Page 4 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 And I do not rejoice, woman, at the griefs of the house, since it has come to be dear to me. NURSE [chants]. There is no house. All that is over now. 140 A royal marriage keeps my master elsewhere, while in her bedroom my mistress wastes away her life, and her heart finds no comfort, none, in the words of any of her friends. MEDEA [chants]. Aiai! Come, Zeus' bolt of lightning, and pierce my head! What do I gain still by living? Alas, alas! May I find rest in death, leaving this hateful life. CHORUS [chants]. O Zeus and Earth and Light,* did you hear what a cry the wretched girl 150 sings out? What love is this you have conceived, rash woman, for the dread resting place? Will you hurry on death's finality? Do not pray for that. If your husband is solemnizing his new marriage, do not be cut with anger at him for that. Zeus will be your advocate here.* Do not wear yourself down so much in these laments for the partner of your bed. 160 MEDEA [chants]. O great Themis and Lady Artemis,* do you see what I suffer, though I bound my accursed husband with great oaths? May I one day see him and his bride pounded to nothing, house and all, since they have dared to wrong me unprovoked. O father, o city, how shamefully I left you, I, the killer of my brother.* NURSE [chants]. Do you hear what she says, how she cries out upon Themis, goddess of prayers, and Zeus, 170 acknowledged the protector of oaths among mortals?

...... pg 6 Certainly it will be by no trivial action that my mistress will lay her anger to rest. CHORUS [chants]. I wish that she could come to see us

Page 5 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 and listen to the tone of our words as we offer them.* Perhaps she might then free her heart from its mood of dangerous passion. I hope that my wish to help will never fail my friends. 180 Go and bring her here from the house. Say that we here are her friends. Hurry before she harms those inside. This her grief has a terrible momentum. NURSE [chants]. I shall do so. But in my fear I doubt if I can persuade my mistress. Still, I shall grant you this difficult favour. Yet she darts on her servants the wild glance of a lioness with young* whenever any of them goes near to say something. You would not be wrong if you denounced our ancestors 190 as fools and ignoramuses— they discovered songs for festivities, banquets and feasts to charm the ears and enhance our lives. But no one has discovered how music and songs with rich accompaniment of strings can put an end to men's hateful sorrows—which lead to deaths and dreadful misfortunes that overturn the house. And yet it would be a gain if men 200 could cure these things with music. Why do they pointlessly tune their sounds to add a gloss of sumptuousness to the feast?* The abundance of the food which is there gives of itself delight to men.

[The NURSE goes into the house.

CHORUS [chants]. I heard the mournful sound of her laments, as she shouts out shrilly her painful sorrows, damning that traitor to her bed, her evil husband. Victim of injustice, she calls upon the gods, upon Themis, daughter of Zeus, goddess of oaths, 210 who brought her to Greece across the sea

...... pg 7

Page 6 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 through the gloomy waters to the Hellespont, the salty strait that locks the boundless Black Sea.

Enter MEDEA from the house.

MEDEA. Women of Corinth, I have come out of the house fearing that you may find some fault with me. I know that many peo- ple are proud, some of them away from men's eyes, others publicly so. But others win a bad reputation for idleness from their quiet tenor of life. Men do not judge justly with their eyes 220 when, before they know for sure the true nature of a person's heart, they hate on sight, though they have suffered no griev- ance. A foreigner especially must fall in with the city's ways, and I do not praise a citizen who in his obstinacy proves a thorn in his fellows' flesh through ignorant perversity.* But in my case, this thing which has struck me so unex- pectedly, has broken my heart. I am lost, I have forfeited all joy in living, my friends,* and I want to die. For well I know that the man who was my everything has proved the vilest of all—my husband. 230 Of everything that is alive and has a mind, we women are the most wretched creatures. First of all, we have to buy a husband with a vast outlay of money—we have to take a master for our body. The latter is still more painful than the former. And here lies the most critical issue—whether we take a good husband or a bad. For divorce brings shame on a woman's reputation and we cannot refuse a husband his rights. We come to new ways of behaviour, to new cus- toms—and, since we have learnt nothing of such matters at 240 home, we need prophetic powers to tell us specifically what sort of husband we shall have to deal with. And if we man- age this well and our husband lives with us and bears the yoke of marriage lightly, then life is enviable. But if not, death would be welcome. As for a man, when he has had enough of life at home, he can stop his heart's sickness by going out—to see one of his friends or contemporaries. But we are forced to look to one soul alone. Men say of us that we live a life free from 250 danger at home while they fight wars. How wrong they are! I would rather stand three times in the battle line than bear one child.*

Page 7 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 ...... pg 8 However, the same reasoning does not apply to you and to me. You have this city, your father's house, a fulfilled life and the company of your friends, while I, a desolate woman without a city, shamefully injured by my husband who car- ried me as plunder from a foreign land, have no haven from this disaster, no mother, no brother, no relative at all.* So I 260 shall ask you to grant me this favour and no more. If I can find some means, some scheme to take a just revenge for these evils on my husband and the man who gave his daughter to him and that daughter whom he married, I ask you to keep silence.* In all other respects a woman is full of fear and proves a coward at the sight of iron in the fight, but when she is wronged in her marriage bed, no creature has a mind more murderous.* CHORUS. I shall do what you ask, since you will be right to exact vengeance from your husband,* Medea. I do not won- der that you grieve over what has happened. 270 Look, I see Creon now, king of this land, coming to tell you his new plans.

Enter CREON.

CREON. Medea, scowling there so enraged with your husband, I proclaim that you must go into exile from this land and take your children with you. No delay. There is no appeal against this command of mine, and I shall not go back home again before I cast you outside the borders of this land.* MEDEA. Aiai! How wretched I am, ruined, utterly ruined. My enemies are sailing against me at top speed and there is no 280 easy haven for me to land at and escape ruin.* My suffer- ings are bitter, but even so I shall ask you for what reason you are sending me from your land, Creon. CREON. I am afraid of you—I mustn't beat about the bush— afraid that you may do my child an incurable hurt. There are many things I can point to which contribute to this. You are a clever woman,* skilled in many evil wiles. You are dis- tressed at the breakdown of your marriage and the loss of your groom.* I hear that you are threatening—so they tell me—to take some action against the husband and his bride and me, who gave my daughter to him. And so I shall take

Page 8 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 precautions against these things before we fall victim to

...... pg 9 290 them. It is better, woman, that I should be hated by you now than weaken and repent too late. MEDEA. Alas, alas. Not now for the first time but often, Creon, my reputation has harmed me and done me great damage. Any man who is sensible should not have his children taught to be clever beyond the norm. For besides the indo- lence they get a name for, they also foment bitter animosity from the citizens. If you present stupid people with a wisdom that is new, you will strike them as useless and idiotic.* 300 Then again, if you are considered superior to those who think they are subtly clever, you will be thought offensive in the city. I myself do not escape this ill feeling. I am clever, and so to some I am a butt for their odium, to others I seem wrapped up in myself, to others quite the opposite, and then again to others I appear anti-social—but I am not excessively clever. And so you fear me. What harsh evil are you afraid you may suffer at my hands? But it is not my way—have no fear of me, Creon—to offend a royal family. After all, how 310 have you wronged me? You gave your daughter to the man to whom your heart directed you. It is my husband that I hate. In my opinion you were sensible to do what you did. And now I do not grudge it you that your fortunes smile. Let the marriage proceed—and good luck go with you all. But allow me to live in this land. Wronged I may be, but I am mastered by a stronger power and shall hold my peace. CREON. Your words are soft to hear, but terror makes me shrink—you may be plotting something evil in your heart. And so I trust you that much less than before. A woman 320 who is quick-tempered—a man too for that matter—is eas- ier to guard against than one who is clever and keeps quiet. Leave my land with all possible speed. Stop this talk. My decision is irrevocable and no craft of yours will enable you, my enemy, to remain among us. MEDEA. No, I beseech* you by your knees* and your newly married daughter. CREON. You are wasting your words. You will never persuade me. MEDEA. But will you drive me out and show no respect for my

Page 9 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 prayers? CREON. Yes, for I love my family rather more than I love you.

...... pg 10 MEDEA. O fatherland, how intensely I recall you now! CREON. I understand: my children apart, I love my country far above all else.* 330 MEDEA. Alas, alas, how utterly disastrous is the effect of love on men. CREON. In my view, that depends on the circumstances. MEDEA. Zeus, do not let the man guilty of these evils escape your vigilance. CREON. Off with you, you foolish woman, and trouble me no more. MEDEA. I suffer troubles—no troubles do I lack. CREON. You will soon be pushed out forcibly by my attendants' hands. MEDEA. Not that, I beg you, but I beseech you, Creon … CREON. It looks as if you're going to make a nuisance of your- self, woman. MEDEA. I shall go into exile.* It's not this that I am supplicat- ing you to grant me. CREON. Why then are you being so aggressive and not simply letting go of my hand?* 340 MEDEA. Allow me to stay this one day and to think out how I can best go into exile and find a haven for my children, since their father does not trouble himself to make any plans for them. But pity them. You too are a father, you have chil- dren. You are likely to be sympathetic to mine. I take no thought for my situation should we be exiled, but I weep for them, the victims of ill fortune. CREON. I am far from tyrannical by temperament and by show- 350 ing mercy I have often come to grief. And now too I can see that I am making a mistake, woman, but nevertheless you will have what you ask for. But I tell you this, if the sun god's light tomorrow shall behold you and your children within the boundaries of this land, you shall die. This is my final word—I mean what I say. But now, if you must remain, stay for a single day, since you won't be able to do any of the terrible things which frighten me.

Page 10 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 [Exit CREON.

CHORUS [chants]. Alas, alas, you pitiable woman.

...... pg 11 wretched in your sufferings. Wherever can you turn? Where can you find a host to welcome you, 360 what home, what country to shield you from disaster? For the god has brought you, Medea, to an overwhelming sea of woes.*

MEDEA. It has all ended in disaster—who can deny it? But it has not come to that—do not think that yet! There are still struggles for the newly-weds and no small troubles for the man who made the match. Do you think that I would ever have fawned on this man were there no profit in it or were 370 it not part of my scheming? No, I wouldn't even have spo- ken to him or touched him with my hands. But he has plum- meted to such depths of stupidity* that, though it was possible for him to thwart my plots by throwing me out of the land, he has granted me this one day to stay here—a day in which I shall make three of my enemies corpses, the father, the daughter, and my husband.* Out of the many possible ways I have to kill them, I do not know what will be my first choice, my friends—should I set fire to the bridal 380 house or go silently into the room where their bridal bed is laid and drive a sharpened sword through their hearts? But there is one thing that is against me. If I am caught as I enter the room to carry out my plot, I shall be killed and give my enemies the last laugh. It is best to take the direct route—here I am the supreme expert—and kill them with poison.* Well then, suppose them dead. What city will take me in? What host will give me refuge in a land secure from attack, in a home where I can be safe, and will protect Medea? There's no one. And so I'll stay here a little time longer to 390 see if some secure place of refuge comes to light for me, and I shall tread my path to this murder in scheming silence. But if misfortune is to drive me out, my plots frustrated, I shall

Page 11 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 myself take a sword, even if I am going to die, and I shall kill them—I shall proceed to an act of ruthless daring. For never, I swear by the mistress whom I revere above all gods and have chosen as my co-worker, Hecate,* who dwells in

...... pg 12 a recess of my hearth, never shall any one of them grieve my heart and smile to see it. Bitter and grim shall I make 400 their marriage for them, bitter the match and my exile from this land. But come. Spare nothing of your expertise, Medea, as you plot and scheme. Go forward to your deed of terror. Now comes the trial of your courage. You see what you are suf- fering? You must not bring laughter on yourself through Jason's marriage into the house of that traitor Sisyphus,* you the daughter of a good father and grandchild of the Sun.* You have the skill—and what is more we are women, supremely helpless when there's good to be done, supreme in clever craftsmanship of all bad deeds.*

410 CHORUS [sings]. The waters of the holy rivers flow upstream* and Justice and the universe are turned upside down. It is men who plan trickery, and trust in the gods no longer stands firm. But what they say of a woman's life will change— I shall be celebrated. Honour is coming to the female sex. 420 Women will be free from the bitter tongue of slander. And the Muses of yesteryear's poets will cease to sing of my faithlessness. For Phoebus, lord of poetry, did not grant to woman's spirit the inspiration of lyre-song.* Otherwise I would have rung out my answer, singing against the male sex. The long expanse of time has much to tell of our side, yes, 430 but much to tell of men as well.

You sailed from your father's house with frenzy in your heart, passing through the sea's twin rocks. You live in a foreign land, you have lost your marriage bed, you have no husband,

Page 12 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 poor woman, and are being driven from the land, an exile without honour.

The spell of reverence for oaths is no more, no longer 440 does reverence abide in great Hellas—it has flown

...... pg 13 up to the skies. You, wretched Medea, have no father's house to seek as a refuge from your toils. Another royal lady has displaced you as wife and now rules in the house.

Enter JASON.

JASON. I have noticed many times before, not only now,* how harsh passions lead to impossible deeds. After all, if you had borne the decisions of people who are stronger than you with a good grace, it would have been possible for you to 450 stay in this land and in this house. As it is, because you pointlessly insisted on having your say, you will be ban ished. This doesn't matter to me. As far as I personally am concerned, you can go on for ever saying that Jason is an utter scoundrel. But, as for what you have said against the royal family, you should consider it all gain that you are being punished simply with exile. For my part, when their majesties' passions were roused, I always did my best to calm them and I wanted you to stay. But you would not moderate your foolish behaviour, and always spoke badly of them. And so you will be banished from the land. But nev- ertheless, even after this, I have not abandoned my friends 460 and have come here because I am thinking about your future, my lady, and how you and the children can avoid being banished without any money—or in want of anything at all. Exile brings many evils in its train. The fact is that, even if you hate me, I could never feel badly towards you. MEDEA. Vilest of traitors—yes, I can at least call you that, the most cutting insult against a man who is no man—so you have come to us have you, bitterest of enemies to us, to the gods, to me and the whole human race? It is not boldness or 470 courage when one hurts one's friends, then looks them in

Page 13 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 the face, but the greatest of all human sicknesses, shame- lessness. But you have done well to come, since I shall relieve my feelings by denouncing you and you will grieve to hear me. I shall begin to speak at the beginning. I saved you, as all those Greeks who embarked together on that same ship, the Argo, know, when you were sent to master the fire-breathing

...... pg 14 bulls with the yoke and to sow the field of death.* I killed the 480 dragon which, ever unsleeping, guarded the all-golden fleece, encircling it with many folding coils, and held up for you the beacon of safety. I betrayed my father and my house and came with you—more passionate than wise—to Iolkos under Mount Pelion, and I killed Pelias* at the hands of his own children—the most grievous of all ways to die—and destroyed their whole house. And though, vilest of men, you reaped these benefits from me, you betrayed me, and made a new 490 marriage—and this though we have children, since if you had still been without a child, it would have been pardonable for you to desire this match. No more is there any trusting to oaths, and I am at a loss to understand whether you think that the gods you swore by then no longer rule or that men now live by new standards of what is right—for well you know that you have not kept your oaths to me. Alas for this right hand which you often held, alas for these knees— touched by an evil man in an empty gesture—how we have missed our hopes. Come now, I shall converse with you as if you were a 500 friend. Yet what benefit can I think I shall receive at your hands?—but converse I shall nevertheless, for questions will show up your vileness still further. Where can I turn now? To my father's house? But I betrayed it, and my fatherland too, when I followed you here. Or to the wretched daugh- ters of Pelias? How warmly they would welcome me in their house—I killed their father! For this is the situation: I have earned the hatred of those dear to me at my home, and have made enemies of those whom I should not have harmed by doing you a favour. In recompense for all this, in the eyes of 510 many women of Greece you have made me happy indeed. What a wonderful husband, what a trustworthy one, I,

Page 14 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 wretched woman, have in you—if I am to be flung out of the land into exile, bereft of friends, my children and myself all, all alone—a fine reproach to the newly married man, that his children and I who saved you should wander round abegging. O Zeus, why have you given men clear ways to recognize what gold is counterfeit, but on the body put no stamp* by which one should distinguish a bad man?

...... pg 15 520 CHORUS. Passions are fierce and hard to cure when those close to each other join in strife. JASON. I must, it seems, be no poor speaker, but escape the wearisome storm of your words, lady, like the trusty helms- man of a ship using the topmost edges of his sail.* Since you lay too great a stress on gratitude. I consider that it was Aphrodite* alone of gods and men who made safe my voy- aging. You are a clever woman—but it would be invidious 530 to spell out how Love forced you with his inescapable arrows to save me. But I shan't go into that in too much detail. You helped me and I'm pleased with the result. However by saving me you took more than you gave, as I shall tell you. First of all, you live in the land of Greece instead of a bar- barian country, you understand the workings of justice and know what it is to live by rule of law and not at the whim 540 of the mighty.* All Greeks saw that you were clever and you won a reputation. If you were living at the furthest limits of the earth, no one would have heard of you. I for my part would not want to have gold in my house or to sing a song more beautifully than Orpheus* if my good fortune did not become far-famed. That is what I have to say to you about my labours. After all, it was you who provoked this war of words. As for your reproaches against me over my royal marriage, I shall show you first of all that I am sensible to make this match, as well as demonstrating good sense and in addition proving a powerful 550 friend to you and my children. [MEDEA makes a gesture of impatience.] No, keep quiet. When I moved here from the land of Iolkos, dragging with me many hopeless troubles, what happier godsend could I have found than to marry the king's daughter, poor exile that I was. It was not—and this

Page 15 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 is what really gets under your skin—that I hated sleeping with you,* or that I was overwhelmed with desire for my new bride, or that I was eager to outdo our family by hav- ing a larger one. I have enough children already and I find no fault with them. My object was—and this is the most 560 important thing—that we should live well and not be in want, for I know that everyone steers well clear of a friend in need—and that I should bring up our children in a man- ner worthy of my house, and by producing brothers to my

...... pg 16 children by you, I should place them all on a level footing, unite them into one family and be prosperous. Why should you want more children? And it is in my interests to benefit those alive now by those that are to be born.* Surely I have not planned this out badly? You would agree with me if the matter of sex were not provoking you. But you women have 570 sunk so low that, when your sex life is going well, you think that you have everything, but then, if something goes wrong with regard to your bed, you consider the best and happiest circumstances utterly repugnant. The human race should produce children from some other source and a female sex should not exist. Then mankind would be free from every evil.* CHORUS. Jason, what you have said is superficially convincing. But none the less, even if I shall speak against what you think, you seem to me to be acting unjustly by betraying your wife. MEDEA. Truth to tell, I often view matters differently from many 580 people. In my opinion an unjust man who is a clever speaker incurs the greatest retribution, since if he is confident that his tongue can gloss over injustice cleverly, he has the audacity to stop at nothing. And so he is not so very clever. This is the case with you too. Do not then make a show of generous behaviour towards me with your skilful speaking, for one word will lay you flat. If you had not been a bad man you should have talked me round before making this marriage— not done it without your loved ones' knowledge. JASON. Yes, I would have had your full backing for this plan, I think, if I'd spoken of the marriage to you—since even now 590 you cannot bring yourself to soften your heart's great rage.

Page 16 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 MEDEA. It wasn't that which stopped you, but your marriage with a barbarian was proving a source of no glory for you as you faced old age. JASON. Rest assured of this then—it was not for the sake of the woman that I made the royal marriage in which I live now. As I have said already, I wanted to keep you safe and pro- duce royal offspring to be brothers and sisters to our chil- dren and thus defend our house. MEDEA. I hope I never have a wealthy life which brings me sor- row or the kind of happiness which galls my heart.

...... pg 17 600 JASON. You must change your wish, you know, and then you will seem more sensible. You must never see what is to your benefit as distressing to you or think that fortune is against you when it smiles on you. MEDEA. Go on insulting me. You have your escape route while I shall go in desolate exile from this land. JASON. You yourself made this choice. You have no one else to blame. MEDEA. What did I do to deserve it? Was it I who married and betrayed you? JASON. You uttered unholy curses against the royal family. MEDEA. Yes, and I am a curse to your house too. JASON. Enough—I shall not discuss these matters with you 610 any further. But, if you wish to receive any assistance from my resources for the children or yourself in your exile, tell me—for I am ready to give with unstinting hand, and to send tokens of introduction* to guest-friends of mine who will treat you well. And you will be foolish to refuse this offer, woman. If you lay aside your rage, you will do better for yourself. MEDEA. We shall make no use of your guest-friends or accept any favours from you—do not try to give us anything. A bad man's gifts can bring no good.* 620 JASON. Well then, I call the gods to witness that I am willing to give every help to you and the children. But you recoil from what is good for you and in your obstinacy you drive away your friends. This will simply add to your sufferings. MEDEA. Off with you. As you linger here away from home, desire of the girl you have just married overwhelms you. Go

Page 17 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 on with your marriage. For perhaps—with god's help it will be said—this will prove the kind of match which will bring you tears.

[JASON goes out.

CHORUS [sings]. When love comes too violently to men,* it gives them no glory for moral virtue. 630 But if Cypris come in moderation, no other goddess is so delightful.

...... pg 18 Never, o mistress, may you anoint with desire your golden bow's inescapable arrow and shoot it at me.

May temperance befriend me, the gods' most lovely gift, and may dread Cypris never madden my heart 640 with adulterous love and attack me with quarrelsome anger and insatiate feuding. May she give honour to unions free from war and prove a sharp judge* of women's marriages.

O my fatherland, o my home, may I never be without my city, trudging on life's difficult path of helplessness— the most pitiful of sorrows. Before that may I have done with this light of life 650 laid low by death, by death. Of all miseries none is worse than to lose one's native land.

We have seen this for ourselves. Not as a story heard from others do I tell it but at first hand. For, Medea, no city and none of your friends will pity you as you suffer the most terrible of sufferings 660 If a man cannot unlock a pure heart and respect his friends,

Page 18 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 may he perish without reward. He will never be a friend of mine.

Enter AEGEUS.*

AEGEUS. Medea, greetings. 'Greetings,' I say, because no one knows a better way than this to start a conversation with friends. MEDEA. And greetings to you too, Aegeus, son of wise Pandion. From where have you come to reach this land of Corinth? AEGEUS. I'm on my way back from the ancient oracle of Phoebus.* MEDEA. Why did you set out to the navel of the earth* where the god sings his prophecies?

...... pg 19 AEGEUS. I wanted to know how I could beget offspring.* 670 MEDEA. By the gods, have you led the whole of your life up till now without children? AEGEUS. I am childless by the stroke of some divine power. MEDEA. Have you a wife or are you unmarried? AEGEUS. I am not unmarried. I am paired with a wife. MEDEA. What then did Phoebus say to you about children? AEGEUS. His words were too clever for a mere man to interpret. MEDEA. Is it right that I should know the god's response? AEGEUS. Certainly—for a clever brain is certainly needed. MEDEA. What was his oracle then? Tell me, if it is right for me to hear. AEGEUS. Not to unloose the wineskin's hanging foot … 680 MEDEA. Before you do what, or arrive at what land? AEGEUS. Before I come again to the hearth of my fathers.* MEDEA. What do you want that you have sailed to this country? AEGEUS. There is a man called Pittheus, the king of the land of Trozen.* MEDEA. Yes, as they say, the son of Pelops, a most reverent man. AEGEUS. I want to impart the oracle of the god to him. MEDEA. Yes, for he is a clever man and experienced in such matters. AEGEUS. And he is the dearest to me of all my allies. MEDEA. I wish you well and hope you meet with all that you desire.

Page 19 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 AEGEUS. But why are your eyes so dull and this your skin so wasted? 690 MEDEA. Aegeus, I have the worst of all husbands. AEGEUS. What are you saying? Tell me clearly what makes you sad. MEDEA. Jason wrongs me though I did him no harm. AEGEUS. What has he done? Tell me more clearly. MEDEA. He has a woman who supplants me* as mistress of his house. AEGEUS. Surely he has not been so brazen as to act in so shameful a way? MEDEA. Be assured of it—and we, his former friends, are now dishonoured. AEGEUS. Was he in love or couldn't he bear his relationship with you?

...... pg 20 MEDEA. Very much in love—he has proved a traitor to his dear ones. AEGEUS. So let him go if, as you say, he is a bad man. 700 MEDEA. He conceived a passion to marry into the royal house. AEGEUS. Who gave her to him? Tell me the whole story. MEDEA. Creon, who rules over this land of Corinth. AEGEUS. It is understandable that you are hurt. MEDEA. It is all over with me. But it is not just that he is leav- ing me. I am being driven out of the country. AEGEUS. By whom? Now you are telling me of yet another, fresh disaster. MEDEA. Creon is driving me into exile from the land of Corinth. AEGEUS. And does Jason consent? I do not approve of this either. MEDEA. He says he doesn't, yet he is willing to endure it. But 710 I beg you by this your beard and your knees*—now I am your suppliant—pity, pity me in my wretchedness and do not look on as I go into desolate exile, but receive me in your country at the hearth of your palace. So may your desire for children with the gods' help find fulfilment and may you come to death a happy man. You do not know what a god- send you have found here in me. I shall put an end to your childlessness—through me you will beget children. I know the medicines for this. 720 AEGEUS. For many reasons, lady, I am eager to grant you this

Page 20 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 favour, first because of the gods, then of the children whose birth you promise me—for in this matter I am totally at a loss. This is how I see things. If you come to my country, I shall try to protect you as I am in right bound to. However, this much I must state plainly in advance, lady: I shall not be willing to take you from this land. You must leave this country on your own initiative. But if you come to my palace yourself, you will stay there safe from harm and I 730 shall not hand you over to anyone. I want to be without blame in the eyes of my guests and my hosts alike.* MEDEA. Excellent. But if I could have some pledge of this, I should be completely happy with your part in the affair. AEGEUS. Don't you trust me? If it's not that, what makes you unhappy? MEDEA. I trust you. But Creon and the house of Pelias hate me. If you are bound to me by oaths, you would not hand me

...... pg 21 over to them if they tried to take me from the land. But if our compact is simply one of words, not ratified with oaths to the gods, you may perhaps listen to their overtures and 740 become their friend. My situation is weak while they have all the wealth of a royal house. AEGEUS. You have shown a great deal of caution about the future in what you say. But if you think it a good idea, I do not refuse to do this. It is indeed safer for me* to have some pretext to offer your enemies, and your own situation will be the more assured. Name your gods. MEDEA. Swear by the land of the Earth and the Father of my father, the Sun,* and each and every god in addition. AEGEUS. To do or refuse to do what? Tell me. 750 MEDEA. Never to cast me out of your land yourself nor, if any of my enemies wishes to take me, to hand me over willingly as long as you live. AEGEUS. I swear by the Earth and the Sun's bright light and all the gods to abide by the words I hear you utter. MEDEA. Enough. What are you to suffer if you do not abide by this oath? AEGEUS. Such fates as befall impious mortals. MEDEA. Go on your way and good luck go with you. All is well and I shall come to your city as quickly as possible—when

Page 21 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 I have done what I intend to do and got what I want.

CHORUS [chants]. May Hermes, son of Maia, the god of travel, 760 bring you home and may you achieve the purpose you are so eager to gain, for in my judgement, Aegeus, you have appeared a noble man.

[AEGEUS goes out.

MEDEA. O Zeus and Justice, daughter of Zeus, and light of the Sun,* now, my friends, I shall win a glorious victory over my enemies. Now I am on the way. Now I can hope that my enemies will pay a just price. For this man—in that dilemma where we were foundering most—has appeared as a haven 770 to save my plans. To him I shall fasten my stern cable* by going to Athens, city of Pallas. Now I shall tell you all my plans. Don't expect to receive my words with pleasure.* I shall, send one of my servants to

...... pg 22 Jason to ask him to come to see me. When he arrives I shall speak soft words to him, saying that I too think these things are good, that it is well that he has made this royal marriage and betrayed me, that all is for the best, all has been well thought out. I approve of the marriage he has made to the 780 princess by betraying me. And I shall ask him to let my chil- dren stay. Not that I would leave my children in a hostile country for my enemies to insult. No, my purpose is to kill the king's daughter with trickery. For I shall send them holding gifts in their hands, and bringing them to the bride to win repeal from exile from this land—a delicate robe and a golden garland. And if she takes these adornments and puts them on her flesh, she will die horribly—as will anyone who touches the girl, with such drugs shall I anoint the gifts. 790 But that is enough of that. I cry out when I think what kind of deed I must do afterwards. For I shall kill the chil- dren, my own ones.* Nobody is going to take them away from me. My heart steeled to the unholiest of deeds, I shall wreak havoc on the whole house of Jason and leave the land

Page 22 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 in flight from the charge of murder, the bloody murder of my beloved children. Laughter from my enemies is not to be endured, my friends. Come what may come! What do I have to gain by living? I have no fatherland, no house, no refuge from 800 calamity. It was then that I made my mistake—when I left my father's house, persuaded by the words of a Greek man who with god's help will pay me the penalty. He will never see his sons born of me alive again and he will have no son by his newly wed bride, since that wretched creature must die a wretched death from my drugs. Let no one think of me as weak and submissive, a cipher—but as a woman of a very different kind, dangerous 810 to my enemies and good to my friends.* Such people's lives win the greatest renown. CHORUS. Since you have shared these words with us and I wish both to help you and to support men's laws, I forbid you to do this.* MEDEA. There is no other way. I can pardon you for saying this for you do not suffer cruelly as I do.

...... pg 23 CHORUS. But will you bring yourself to kill the fruit of your womb, lady? MEDEA. Yes, for this would be the best way to hurt my husband. CHORUS. But you would become the most miserable of women. MEDEA. On with it! Until the deed is done, all words are wasted. 820 [to the NURSE] But now, go and bring Jason here. I employ you in all matters of trust. But say nothing of what I have determined on if you care about your mistress and are a true woman.

[The NURSE goes out.

CHORUS [sings]. Descendants of Erechtheus, happy for so long,* children of the blessed gods, sprung from a holy and unconquered land, feeding your fill of most glorious knowledge, ever moving 830 with easy grace under the brightest of skies, where they say that once the nine Muses, the sacred maidens of Pieria, gave birth to golden-haired

Page 23 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 Harmony—

and dwelling by the waters of the fair-flowing Cephisus, which, as the story goes, Aphrodite drew and breathed upon the land the gentle and sweet breath 840 of her breezes. And always, as she casts fragrant garlands of roses on her hair, the Loves escort her, the companions of Knowledge and inspirers of all the arts.

How then shall the city of sacred rivers or the land which gives safe conduct to friends receive you, the child-murderer, 850 the unholy one, and give you a home? Think what it is to stab your children, think what kind of killing you undertake. Do not, we beg you by your knees unreservedly, in every way, do not kill your children.

Where will you find so bold a spirit or such dreadful courage for your heart and hand

...... pg 24 as you bring them against your children? 860 And how, when you cast your eyes upon them, will you hold fast to their fate of death and not weep? When your boys fall in supplication, you will not be able to wet your hand in their blood with unflinching heart.

Enter JASON.

JASON. I have come as you told me to. For the fact is that, though you are my enemy, you will not fail to win this. I shall listen to you. What new thing is it that you want from me, lady? MEDEA. Jason,* I beg you to pardon what I said before. It is 870 only reasonable that you should bear with my passionate

Page 24 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 moods, since we have exchanged many acts of loving kind- ness. I have debated the matter with myself and have reproached myself: 'What lunacy makes me so stubborn, why do I bear ill will to those whose counsels are good, why do I make myself hateful to the rulers of this land and to my husband who is pursuing the course that is most advanta- geous to us in marrying a princess and producing brothers for my children? Shall I not be rid of my anger? What is 880 wrong with me when the gods are providing well for me? Do I not have children? Am I not aware that we are going into exile from this land and need friends badly?' I thought over these things and saw that I was being very foolish and that my rage was needless. And so now I applaud you. You seem to me to show good sense in mak- ing this marriage in addition to ours—and I seem idiotic. I ought to be sharing in these plans and helping to bring them to fulfilment, standing beside the marriage bed and taking pleasure in waiting upon your bride. 890 But we are what we are—I won't call us evil—we women. And so you should not be like us in our weaknesses nor match folly with folly. I ask for your good will and admit that I viewed the business wrongly before but now have come to see it with better judgement. O children, children, come here, leave the house. [The CHILDREN enter with the TUTOR.] Come out here and embrace your father and talk to

...... pg 25 him with me. Be like your mother and as you greet him be reconciled from your previous hatred towards one who loves you. We have made peace—anger has given way. Take his 900 right hand.—Ah me! One of my hidden troubles comes to my mind.—Children, will you live a long life and stretch forth your loving arms at your father's grave? How quick I am to weep, unhappy woman, and how full of fear! At last I have brought our quarrel with your father to an end and these my soft eyes fill with tears.* CHORUS. A pale tear starts from my eyes too. There is trouble enough now. Pray god it goes no further. JASON. I approve of what you say, woman, and I find no fault with your former attitude either. It is fair enough that one 910 of your sex, a woman, should fly into a passion with a hus-

Page 25 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 band who traffics in contraband love.* But your heart now follows a better course. You have taken your time, but you have now come to a wiser view. This is the behaviour of a sensible woman. And, as for you, my children, your father has not been thoughtless but has furnished great hope of safety if the gods so wish. I think that you will yet live to prove the chief citizens of this land of Corinth with your brothers-to-be. Only grow up. Your father and any of the 920 gods who is kindly will bring about the rest. I pray to see you thriving as you reach the fullness of youth, triumphant over my enemies. But you, Medea, why do you bedew your eyes with pale tears and turn away your ashen face? Aren't you glad to hear what I have just said?* MEDEA. It's nothing. I'm thinking about these children. JASON. Have no fear then. I shall make all well for them. MEDEA. I shall do as you say. I do not mistrust your words. But a woman is a delicate creature, ever prone to tears. JASON. Yes, but why do you cry so very much for these chil- dren? 930 MEDEA. I gave them birth, and when you prayed that they should live, pity swept over me as I wondered whether your prayer would be granted. But as to the matters you have come here to discuss with me, some of them we have dealt with, and now I shall mention others. Since the royal family has decided to send me

...... pg 26 from the land—and it is best for me, as I now well understand, not to give annoyance to you and the lords of this country by living here, for I appear to be an enemy to their house—I shall 940 leave the land as an exile, but you must beg Creon that our children should not go into exile from this country so that they can receive their education at your hands. JASON. I do not know whether I am likely to persuade him, but I must try. MEDEA. At least bid your wife to entreat her father that the children should not go into exile from this land. JASON. Certainly, and, if she is like the rest of her sex, I think I shall persuade her.* MEDEA. I too shall give you assistance in this task. I shall send

Page 26 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 the children to her bearing gifts which I know are the most beautiful in the world by far, a delicate robe and a golden 950 garland. Let one of the servants bring the adornments here as quickly as possible. She will win not one but countless blessings—in you she has gained the best of men as her hus- band and she has received the adornments which once the Sun, the father of my father, gave to his children. Take these bridal gifts into your hands,* children, carry and bring them to the royal bride, that happy woman. These are no con- temptible gifts that she will receive. JASON. Why, foolish woman, are you emptying your own 960 hands of these things? Do you really think that a royal palace is in need of robes or of gold? Keep them, do not give them away. If my wife values me at all, I am confident that she will put me before mere possessions. MEDEA. No! No! They say that gifts persuade even the gods. Gold has more power with men than an infinity of words. Hers is the fortune, hers the life god now exalts, she is young and a princess. To save my children from exile I would give up not only gold but my life. Now, children, go into that rich house and supplicate 970 your father's new wife, my mistress, begging her that you may not be exiled, and give her these adornments. For it is vital that she takes these gifts into her hands. Go with all speed. I pray that you succeed and return with good tidings for your mother of what she longs to achieve.

[JASON and the TUTOR go out with the CHILDREN.

...... pg 27 CHORUS [sings]. No longer have I any hope now for the children's lives, no longer. Already they are going to their death. The bride will accept the golden headband, will accept, poor woman, the destruction it conceals. 980 She herself with her own hands will put the ornament of Death around her golden hair.

The loveliness and divine brightness of the robe and the golden garland will persuade her to put them on. Now she will adorn herself as a bride for the dead below. Such is the trap, such the deadly fate

Page 27 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 into which she, miserable creature, will fall. She will find no escape from ruin.

990 And you, wretched man, both bridegroom and curse for your new royal family, without knowing it you are bringing destruction on your children's lives, bringing hateful death on your wife. Miserable man, how far you have strayed from the future you foresaw.

I share with your grief, I grieve for your pain, unhappy mother of boys, you who will murder your own children to avenge your bridal bed which your husband abandoned, 1000 hurting you against all his oaths, to live in marriage with another bedfellow.

The TUTOR enters with the CHILDREN.

TUTOR. Mistress, these children, I tell you, are no longer to be exiled and the royal bride was delighted to take your gifts into her hands. There it is all peace for them..* But what's this? Why are you standing there with such a desperate look when things are going well for you? Why have you turned your face away? Aren't you glad to hear what I have just said? MEDEA. Alas! TUTOR. Your reaction is out of harmony with what I have told you.

...... pg 28 MEDEA. Alas, I say again. TUTOR. Can it be that I am announcing some misfortune without 1010 knowing it? Am I wrong to think I have brought you good news? MEDEA. Your news is as it is. I find no fault with you. TUTOR. But why are your eyes downcast, and why do you shed these tears? MEDEA. I cannot but weep, old man—the gods and I planned all this, my evil plan.

Page 28 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 TUTOR. Be of good cheer. One of these days your children will bring you home. MEDEA. I shall bring others to peace* before I, poor creature that I am, come back. TUTOR. You are not the only woman who has been separated from her children. Since we are human, we must bear our troubles lightly. 1020 MEDEA. Yes, and I shall do so. But go into the house and get ready what the children need to see them through the day.

[The TUTOR goes into the house.

O children, children, you have a city and a home. You can leave me, your mother, in my misery and pass your whole lives far away from me. And I shall go to another land as an exile before I can reap my reward from you and see you prosperous, before I can get ready the lustral water and deck the marriage bed at your weddings and adorn your wife and hold up the torches. O, what misery my wilfulness is bring- ing me! It was in vain then, my children, that I nursed you, 1030 in vain that I toiled for you and wore myself down with the strain, barren the births pangs that I endured. Many indeed were the hopes that I, poor fool, placed in you once. I trusted that you would care for me in my old age and that your hands would wrap my body duly in my shroud when I died, an enviable lot for mankind.* But now that sweet thought is lost. Deprived of you, I shall lead a life full of grief and pain for me. You will look upon your mother with loving eyes no longer when your way of life has been changed. 1040 Alas! Alas! Why do you look at me like this, my children? Why do you smile this final smile of all? Aiai, what can I do? My heart's steel shattered, women, when I saw my chil-

...... pg 29 dren's bright eyes. I could never do the deed. Goodbye to my former plans. I shall take my children from the land. Why should I, as I seek to pain their father through their suffer- ings, win twice as much agony for myself? I will not do it. Goodbye to my plans. But what is wrong with me? Do I want to make myself

Page 29 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 1050 ridiculous by letting my enemies go unpunished? I must face the deed. Shame on my cowardice in even letting my mind dally with these weak thoughts. Go into the house, children. Those for whom it is not right to be present at my sacrifice— that is a matter for them.* My hand will not weaken. Ah, Ah, do not, my heart, do not do this.* Let them be, poor heart—spare the children. Alive with us in Athens, they will make you happy. By the avenging fiends below in 1060 Hades, it will never come to pass that I leave my children for my enemies to insult. There's no alternative—they must die.* And since they must, I who gave them birth shall kill them. In any case, the thing is done and the princess will not escape. Even now the garland is on her head, in the robe the royal bride is dying, I know it well. But I shall start on the cruellest of journeys and I shall send these children on one that's crueller still. And so I wish to speak to them. 1070 Give your right hands, children, give them to your mother to kiss. O dearest of hands, dearest of lips to me, o children, so noble in appearance and so beautiful, may you find joy— but elsewhere.* Your father took away your chance of hap- piness here. O the sweet pressure of my children's embraces, o the softness of your skin and the delicious fragrance of your breath. Away with you; go! [The CHILDREN go out.] I can no longer look upon you but I am overwhelmed by the evils which surround me. And I know what evil deeds I am about to do, but my fury against Jason is stronger than my coun- 1080 sels of softness, and it is fury that leads to the greatest evils for mankind.*

CHORUS [chants]. Often before now I have traced subtler thoughts and confronted greater dilemmas than the female sex ought to explore.* But I found a way, for we too have a muse

...... pg 30 which journeys with us to give us wisdom, but not with all of us—small is the number of women (perhaps you could find one among many) who are not strangers to the muse.

Page 30 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 1090 And I say that those of mortals who have not had children* and have no knowledge of this, none at all, win greater happiness than those who are parents. The childless, who have not discovered whether children prove in the end a delight or a sorrow for men—for they have no experience of them—, are freed from many troubles. But as for those in whose homes sweet children are born, 1100 I see them in a state of ceaseless torment as they anx- iously wonder first how they can bring them up well and in what way they can leave a means of support for their children. And then besides this, it is unclear whether they are toiling for worthless children or for good ones. And now I shall tell one trouble, the worst of all, which is common to all mortals. For suppose they have found sufficient sustenance, and their children have grown up to the fullness of youth, and they have proved to be good. 1110 If their fortune falls out like that, Death has gone to Hades, taking with him the children's bodies. How then can it profit a man that, on top of all his other griefs, the gods should afflict him with this, the most painful grief of all. as a price for the blessings of his children?

MEDEA. My friends, I have long been waiting to find out what has happened. I have been waiting on Fortune to find out how events in the palace will turn out. And now I see here one of Jason's attendants on his way. His panting breath 1120 shows that he has a fresh disaster to announce.

The MESSENGER enters.

...... pg 31 MESSENGER. Medea, unholy author of a dreadful deed, take flight, take flight, by land or sea. Use any means of transport

Page 31 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 you can find.* MEDEA. What has happened to make me flee? MESSENGER. The princess has just died—and her father Creon—from your poisons. MEDEA. What glorious news you bring! Henceforth I shall number you among my benefactors and friends. MESSENGER. What are you saying? Are you in your right mind, 1130 not mad, lady, when you have wreaked this outrage upon the royal family and rejoice to hear of it? Do you feel no fear at what it involves? MEDEA. I do have something to say in answer to your words. But take your time,* my friend, and tell me how they lost their lives. For you will give me double the pleasure if I hear that they have died the foulest of deaths. MESSENGER. When your two children arrived with their father and entered the bride's home, those of us servants who had been distressed at your troubles were delighted. At once a 1140 buzz of news spread through the house—you and your hus- band had made up your former quarrel. One of us kissed your boys' hands, another their golden hair. As for myself, my joy led me to follow the children into the women's quar- ters. The mistress whom we now honour instead of you, before she noticed your two sons, kept her eager eyes fixed upon Jason. But then, when she saw the boys come in, she put a veil over her eyes and turned away her pale cheek in 1150 disgust. Your husband, however, tried to allay the girl's angry mood with these words: 'You must not be an enemy to those dear to me. Lay aside your anger and turn your face this way again. Look upon your husband's friends as your own. Accept the gifts and beg your father to remit the sen- tence of exile on these boys for my sake.' And when she saw the adornments, she could not resist* but promised her hus- band all he asked, and before your boys and their father had gone far from the house, she took the finely woven robe and 1160 put it on and, placing the golden garland around her curls, she arranged her hair as she looked in a shining mirror,* laughing at the lifeless picture of her body. And then she stood up from her throne and walked through the house,

...... pg 32 stepping delicately on her pale white feet, utterly thrilled by

Page 32 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 the gifts, again and again standing on tiptoe to admire the way the robe fell. But what came next was a fearful sight to behold. She changed colour and staggered back sideways, her limbs 1170 trembling, and just managed to collapse on the throne, not fall to the ground. And one of the old maidservants, perhaps thinking that the frenzy of Pan or some other god had come upon her,* raised an ecstatic cry—but then she saw the white foam coming from her lips, her eyes starting from their sockets and her flesh drained of all its blood. Then she changed her former cry to something very different—a great howl. Immediately one servant rushed to her father's house, another to the new husband to report the disaster that had 1180 befallen the girl. The whole house resounded as everyone ran this way and that. There passed the time in which a swift runner could have completed the final two-hundred- yard stretch of the race track, and now she recovered the use of her voice and sight, regaining consciousness, poor woman, with a dreadful groan. For a double calamity was advancing upon her. The golden garland set upon her head was sending forth a wonder, a stream of all-consuming fire, while the delicate robe, the gift of your children, was feed- 1190 ing on the wretched girl's pale flesh. Leaping from her throne, she fled, all on fire, shaking her hair and her head now this way, now that, in her wish to throw off the gar- land. But the gold kept its hold firm and fast, and when she shook her hair the fire blazed forth twice as much as before. Overcome by calamity she fell to the ground, so misshapen that only a loving parent would find it easy to recognize her. Her eyes had lost their usual clear and settled look, her face its loveliness. Blood mingled with fire dripped from the top 1200 of her head, her flesh melted from her bones like teardrops of resin as your poisons gnawed invisibly. It was a fearful sight. Everyone was afraid to touch the corpse. We had what had happened to teach us. But her poor father, still unaware of the calamity, suddenly came into the house and fell upon the corpse. At once he cried out in his grief, threw his hands round her and kissed her as he spoke these words. 'Poor

...... pg 33

Page 33 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 child, which of the gods has destroyed you and done such dishonour to your wedding day? Which of them has taken you away from your old father, now more dead than alive? 1210 Ah me, let me die with you, my child.'* But when he had stopped his lamentations, and wished to raise his aged body, he stuck to the subtle robe as ivy clings to the shoots of the bay tree—and a terrible struggle ensued; for he wanted to lift his knee while she kept clinging to him. And if he pulled violently, he kept tearing his old flesh from his bones. But after a time the flame of his life was extinguished and the ill- fated man breathed out his spirit. No longer could he mas- 1220 ter catastrophe. They lie there corpses, the girl and her old father, near to each other, a calamity to welcome tears. I shall say nothing of how this affects you. You will expe- rience for yourself the penalty which will turn upon you. I have long thought that man's life is merely a shadow, and I should not fear to say that those who seem to be wise as they anxiously ponder their words of wisdom convict them- selves of the greatest folly. For no man is ever truly happy. One may have better luck than another if wealth pours in— 1230 but that is not real happiness. CHORUS. It seems to be with justice that the god has clamped so many disasters upon Jason on this day. O daughter of Creon, you wretched girl, how we pity you in your cata- strophe—for your marriage with Jason has brought you to the house of Hades. MEDEA. My friends, I have now decided what to do—with all haste I shall kill my children and leave this country. I shall not delay and so surrender them to other, crueller hands to 1240 kill. There's no escape from it, none at all. They must die. And since they must, I who bore them, shall kill them. But come, my heart, arm yourself. Why do I delay to do the ter- rible but necessary crime? Come, my cruel hand, take the sword, take it, go forward to where life's pain begins.* Do not prove a coward, do not think how very much you love your children, how you gave them birth. Forget your feel- ings for them for this one brief day and then lament. For 1250 even if you will kill them, still they were born your dear chil- dren—and I am an ill-fated woman.

[Exit MEDEA.

Page 34 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 ...... pg 34 CHORUS [sings]. O Earth and radiant brightness of the Sun,* look down, look on this accursed woman before she lays her murderous hands on her children and kills her own flesh and blood. For it was from your golden stock that she sprang, and now I fear that your divine blood may fall on the ground, spilt by a mortal. But, O Zeus-born light, hold her back, stop her, drive from the house 1260 this Fury,* made cruel and deadly by fiends.

Vain were your pangs in childbirth for your children, all for nothing, in vain, Medea, you bore children you loved, after you left the most unhospitable strait of the dark-blue Clashing Rocks, the Symplegades. You wretched woman, why has this anger fallen on you and oppressed your heart, and why does raging murder follow on murder? The pollution of blood shed on the ground from kin, I know, bears hard on mortals, and woes in answer fall from the gods 1270 on the house of the kin-slayers. CHILD [off-stage]. Help! Help! CHORUS [sings]. Do you hear the children's cry, do you hear it? O woman, hard of heart, ill-fated! CHILD A. Alas what am I to do? Where can I run to from my mother's hands? CHILD B. I do not know, my dearest brother. This is our death. CHORUS [sings]. Should I go into the house? I think I should defend the children from death. CHILD A. Yes, by the gods, defend us. We need your help. CHILD B. How near we are now to the sword's snare! CHORUS [sings]. Cruel woman, you must be stone 1280 or iron*—for you will kill your children, the fruit your womb bore, bringing their doom on them with your own hand.

I have heard of one woman of those of old, one who laid her hands on her dear children,

Page 35 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 ...... pg 35 Ino,* who was driven mad by the gods, when the wife of Zeus sent her wandering from her house. The wretched woman flung herself into the sea because of the impious murder of her children; she stepped over a sea-cliff, and killed herself, dying together with her two boys. 1290 After that, what horror could surprise us? O love of women with its many troubles, how vast a history of catastrophe have you brought upon men!

Enter JASON

JASON. You women who are standing near this house, is Medea who has done these terrible things, still inside this house or has she fled away? She must surely hide herself below the earth or fly with winged body into the deep heaven if she is not to pay the penalty to the royal family. Does she really 1300 believe that she can kill the rulers of the land and get away from this house scot-free? However, I'm not concerned about her so much as the children. Those whom she harmed will harm her—but it is my children's life that I have come to save,* in case the relations of the dead do something to them in vengeance for their mother's blasphemous act of murder. CHORUS. Unhappy man, you do not know how far into cata- strophe you have come, Jason. Otherwise you would not have said these words. JASON. What is it? Can she be wanting to kill me too? CHORUS. Your children have died at their mother's hand. 1310 JASON. Alas, what can you mean? Your words are death to me, woman. CHORUS. You must believe that your children are no longer. JASON. Where did she kill them? In or out of the house? CHORUS. If you open the doors, you will see your children's corpses. JASON. Undo the bolts with all speed, attendants, release the fastenings so that I can see a double disaster, those two dead children—and take a just revenge on her.

MEDEA appears above the palace in a chariot drawn by dragons.

Page 36 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 The CHILDREN's corpses are on the chariot.*

...... pg 36 MEDEA. Why are you shaking these doors and trying to force them open as you search for the bodies and for me, the 1320 doer of the deed? You can cease your labours. If you have need of me, speak if you wish, but you shall never lay a hand on me. Such is the chariot that the Sun, father of my father, has given me* to defend me against my enemies' hands. JASON. You loathsome creature, hateful beyond all other women to the gods, to me and to the whole human race— you have had the ruthlessness to drive a sword into the chil- dren whom you bore. You have destroyed me and left me childless. You have done these things—and yet can you look upon the sun and earth,* you, cruel perpetrator of the most unholy of all deeds? My curse on you. My mind is clear now 1330 but it was not clear when I brought you from your home in a barbarian land to a house in Greece, disaster that you are, traitor to your father and the land that nurtured you. The gods have launched on me the curse which should have punished you, swooping down on me. It was after killing your brother by your hearth* that you embarked on the Argo, that fair-prowed ship.* That was how you began, and then, after you had become my bride and borne me children, you killed them because our sex life was over. There is no 1340 Greek woman who could ever have brought herself to do this—and yet I chose you before all of them as a fitting wife for me. A hateful marriage it proved and it has destroyed me. You are no woman but a lioness, more savage by nature than Etruscan Scylla.* But I could not wound you, however many insults I hurl at you, such is your brazen audacity. Away with you, you artist in obscenity, you polluted mur- deress of your children. All I can do is lament my evil des- tiny, for I shall reap no benefit from my new marriage, and 1350 I shall not have the children I begat and brought up to speak to while they are still alive—for I have lost them. MEDEA. I would have given a long-drawn-out answer in response to what you have said, did not father Zeus know how you have repaid me and what you have done. You were never going to shame our bed and lead a pleasant life

Page 37 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 and laugh at me—nor was the princess, or Creon, the man who made this marriage for you—he was not going to

...... pg 37 throw me out of this land and get away with it. So now call me a lioness even, if you want, and Scylla who took her 1360 abode on the Etruscan rock. I have done what I had to—I have stung your heart. JASON. And you too feel pain and you share in the catastrophe.* MEDEA. You are right, but my sorrow is well repaid if you can- not laugh at me. JASON. O children, what evil you met with in your mother! MEDEA. My boys, how sick your father's baseness which destroyed you! JASON. But it was not my right hand that killed them. MEDEA. No—it was your insulting arrogance and your new marriage. JASON. Did you really think my marriage a good enough rea- son to kill them? MEDEA. Do you think that this is a small hurt for a woman?* JASON. Not a woman who knows self-control. But to you it is all the evil in the world. 1370 MEDEA. These children are no more. This will hurt you. JASON. They live on, alas, as spirits of vengeance upon your life. MEDEA. The gods know who began all this woe. JASON. Yes, they know your detestable spirit. MEDEA. Hate on. I loathe your bitter snarling. JASON. Yes, and I loathe yours. But it is easy for us to part company. MEDEA. How? What shall I do? I too am eager to part. JASON. Let me bury these bodies and lament them. MEDEA. No, I will not, for I shall carry them to the precinct of Hera, goddess of the Acropolis, and bury them with these 1380 my hands—so that none of my enemies can tear up their tombs and make sport with their bodies. In this land of Sisyphus* I shall institute a holy festival and sacred rites for times to come in recompense for this impious murder.* I myself shall go to the land of Erechtheus to live with Aegeus, the son of Pandion. And you, you bad man, will—as befits you—die a humiliating death, struck on the head by a frag- ment of the Argo,* and see the bitter conclusion to your

Page 38 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 marriage with me.

The rest of the play is chanted.

...... pg 38 JASON. I pray that the Fury* roused by our children 1390 and Justice, the avenger of bloodshed, may destroy you. MEDEA. But which god or divine power listens to you, the oath-breaker, the treacherous host?* JASON. Ah, ah, you foully polluted woman, murderer of your children! MEDEA. Go to your house and bury your wife. JASON. I am going. I have lost both my children too. MEDEA. You are still a novice in grief. Wait till you grow old.* JASON. O my dearest children. MEDEA. Dearest to their mother, not to you. JASON. So why did you kill them? MEDEA. To cause you pain. JASON. Alas, I long to kiss my children's dear lips, 1400 poor wretch that I am.* MEDEA. Now you want to speak to them and embrace them, though then you pushed them away. JASON. In the gods' name, let me touch the soft skin of my children. MEDEA. Never. Your words are wasted on the empty air. JASON. Zeus, do you hear how I am being driven away and how I suffer as the victim of this foul lioness, the killer of her children? But I still lament my sorrow as much as my plight allows, 1410 as much as I am able, calling on the gods to witness how you, have killed my children for me and yet prevent me from touching their bodies with my hands,* or burying them. I wish I had never begot them to see them slaughtered by you.

[MEDEA flies off in her chariot. JASON goes out.

CHORUS. Zeus on Olympus dispenses many things and the gods bring many things to pass against our expec- tation.

Page 39 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 What we thought would happen remains unfulfilled, while the god has found a way to accomplish the unex- pected. And that is what has happened here.*

[The CHORUS goes out.

Page 40 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 NOTES

1–6 How I wish … for Pelias: Medea's Nurse, a slave, refers to the legendary journey of Jason and the Argonauts. King Pelias, who had usurped the kingdom of Iolkos from Jason's father, sent the hero to fetch the golden fleece from Colchis on the east of the Black Sea. The craftsman Argos built a magical ship called the Argo with wood from Mount Pelion in Thessaly. It carried Jason and his crew through the Clashing Rocks (in the Bosporos). The fleece was guarded by a dragon, but the Colchian princess Medea fell in love with Jason and helped him with her magic to take it. She then fled with him to Iolkos.

9-10 persuaded the daughters of Pelias to kill their father: on the pretext that if they chopped their father up and boiled him in a cauldron he would be rejuvenated. But in revenge for Pelias' treatment of Jason and his father, Medea misled his daughters, who thus simply killed him. The inhabitants of Iolkos were appalled at what Medea had done in revenge for Pelias' treatment of Jason and his father, and she and Jason fled to Corinth. Euripides spares us the gory details. He may want us to warm to the humanity of Medea at the play's outset.

11 husband and children: according to Apollonius of Rhodes (third-century BCE), Medea went through a marriage ceremony with Jason. In Euripides' Athens, a marriage with a foreigner would have no legal validity and Jason certainly does not feel tied by it. They have had two children.

17 Jason has betrayed his own children: Jason does, in fact, feel some sense of responsibility for them (559–68).

18 beds down in a royal match: Jason has married Glauce, the daughter of Creon, the king of Corinth. The match should give him security—and presumably will assure him of the kingship when Creon dies.

36 she hates her children: Medea's reactions to her children, threatening at the moment, provide one of the play's major sources of emotion. The children are in danger because they are the tokens of Jason's false marriage to her.

46–7 here comes the children … races: the children have been innocently playing.

48 s.d.: the Tutor is another slave. Euripides establishes a feeling of unheroic domestic realism at the start of the tragedy. From this familiar atmosphere, the Greek audience would find itself led into a world of inhuman cruelty.

57 the earth and sky: she has come outside to escape the claustrophobic tensions within. While it is conventional in Greek tragedy for troubled characters to declare their grievances

Page 41 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 to these elements, the Earth and the Sun prove to be of great significance in the course of Medea. See nn. at 1251–2, 1321–2, and 1327–8.

65 I entreat you by your chin: this refers to the Greek custom of supplication. If one established physical contact with someone from whom one wanted a favour, the latter would feel under an obligation to grant it. The appropriate parts of the body to touch were the chin and the knees.

68 draughts: again a note of unheroic realism (though Protesilaus played this game on the Trojan expedition (Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis 195–6) and Achilles and Ajax are shown dicing on a famous Exekias vase in the Vatican).

69 Peirene: a fountain in Corinth.

85–8 is anyone … marriage: the Tutor is worldly-wise and cynical.

92 like a bull's: a dangerous animality flashes forth from Medea.

114 may the whole house fall in ruin: Jason's desertion has dislocated the structure of the household. Medea's wish here builds on that idea.

119 Our royal masters have dangerous spirits: the Nurse observes her great mistress from an ordinary person's viewpoint.

125 Moderation: one of the ideals of Greek life. Inscribed on Apollo's temple at Delphi were the words 'Nothing in excess' (cf. 127). Excess can rouse divine resentment (cf. 129).

130 s.d.: the Chorus of Corinthian women is sympathetic to Medea.

148 Earth and Light: cf. 57 and the references given there.

157 Zeus will be your advocate here: Zeus, the supreme god, should assert the claims of Justice and support oaths. However, he—and the other gods—prove to be conspicuously absent from this play.

160 Themis: the goddess of Law, who maintains the sanctity of prayers (169) and oaths (209). Artemis: protects marriage.

167 I, the killer of my brother: while fleeing from her father Aeetes in the Argo after Jason's theft of the fleece, Medea cut her young brother Apsyrtus into pieces and flung them into the sea to delay the pursuit, for the pious Aeetes had to stop to gather up the remains of his son. (But see n. at 1334.) Again (cf. n. at 9–10) Euripides does not mention the horrific

Page 42 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 details of this episode. At the moment we are given a sympathetic view of Medea. But even so this is a sinister hint of what she is capable of doing to children.

173–5 I wish … offer them: the warm and ready sympathy of the Chorus is well brought out.

187–8 she darts … the wild glance of a lioness with young: the Greek literally means: 'she becomes a bull with the look of a lioness with young.' Again (cf. 92) we see the animal within Medea.

192–201 they discovered … to the feast: the Nurse goes against a common Greek view when she says that all that music offers is trivial entertainment. Music was considered an important part of Greek education since it promoted harmony in the human soul. However, the Nurse is here showing (a) that she cannot relate to the old aristocratic lifestyle in which great poetry such as Homer's was sung to deeply appreciative audiences, and (b) that she does grasp how far beyond any possible psychological harmony Medea has now moved.

213–24 Women of Corinth … perversity: an eminently reasonable Medea feels that she has done all she can to fit in with the life of a strange Greek city in which she is a resident alien (a metic).

227 my friends: while Medea calls the members of the Chorus her friends, they never do so in return, preferring to address her as 'lady'. Is this a mark of respect, or is S. L. Schein right when he suggests that it 'reflects their sense of her as just too far out, too inhuman for their complete solidarity' ('Philia in Euripides' Medea', in M. Griffin and D. Mastronarde (eds.), Cabinet of the Muses (Atlanta, Ga., 1990), 65),

230–51 Of everything that is … bear one child: the most famous feminist statement in ancient literature. The comments on marriage are a reflection of the reality for Athenian— and no doubt Corinthian—women of Euripides' day, though they scarcely apply to Medea, who made a dowryless marriage for love. The point that men, but not their wives, can escape the stifling claustrophobia of the home is well taken. And the final comparison between fighting in war and giving birth is an arresting and challenging one for any audience, especially the largely or exclusively male one of the Attic theatre.

255–8 I, a desolate woman without a city … no relative at all: as a resident alien (a metic). Medea needs a male citizen to act as her sponsor. In fact, she has no male to protect her, and it is obviously impossible for her to turn to her family. She is without a city to call home, a tragic lot in the Greek world.

260–4 If I can find some means … to keep silence: the Chorus agrees to keep silence and thus feels that it has no choice but to stand by helplessly when Medea's scheming takes its

Page 43 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 horrific turn. This causes it to become very like the audience of the play, who also must look on, unable to intervene.

265–6 when she is wronged … more murderous: the idea of the woman who is sexually slighted is a powerful one in the play.

267 you will be right to exact vengeance from your husband: the Chorus, like all ancient Greeks, accept the revenge ethic.

271–6 Medea … borders of this land: King Creon speaks decisively, saying that there is no appeal against his command. His withdrawal from this position reveals him as blustering and weak.

278–9 My enemies are sailing against me … escape ruin: the nautical imagery is an important feature of this play and is appropriate to Corinth with its two harbours and its diolkos, a kind of railway line for winching ships across its narrow isthmus (see Map of the Greek World p. xlvi). It is a place for short-term residents, for birds of passage.

285 You are a clever woman: Medea answers this charge in her next speech. However, Creon proves to be only too justified in his fear of her subtle brain.

286 You are distressed … loss of your groom: the theme of the sexually slighted woman.

294–9 Any man who is sensible … useless and idiotic: Aristophanes' comedy Clouds (423 BC) is perhaps the most notorious expression of the Athenians' suspicion of the Sophists, whose ingenuity allowed them to make the worse case appear the better. For an admirably positive estimate of the Sophists, see E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Ancient Concept of Progress (Oxford, 1973), ch. 10.

324–39: No, I beseech you … letting go of my hand: frequently in Greek tragedy there are passages in which two characters address each other in single lines. This device, called stichomythia, is particularly effective in scenes of confrontation. See Introduction, p. xxxii.

324 knees: see n. at 65.

329 my children apart, I love my country far above all else: Creon here lets Medea know that the way to hurt him is through his daughter.

338 I shall go into exile: Medea shifts her ground.

339 and not simply letting go of my hand: Medea is still maintaining the physical contact that denotes supplication.

Page 44 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 362–3 an overwhelming sea of woes: nautical imagery. cf. n. at 278–9.

371 he has plummeted to such depths of stupidity: Creon was aware that he was making a mistake in allowing Medea to stay (350). She has played extremely effectively on his paternal feelings.

373–4 he has granted me this one day … husband: the action of most Greek tragedies takes place in a single day, which is frequently a source of dramatic intensity. husband: in the event she leaves him alive, his life in ruins.

385 kill them with poison: poison is a device favoured by women in Greek tragedy, but it may be that here we have a glimpse of Medea as the exponent of witchcraft.

397 Hecate: the witchcraft theme now comes into the open, for Hecate was the goddess who presided over magic and was linked to the world of the Shades. When Medea invokes her as her co-worker and lets us know that she keeps the goddess's image in a recess of her hearth, we may feel that she is beginning to lose contact with her humanity. Lines 394–8 have left their mark, through an English translation of Seneca's version, on Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth (Macbeth, 1. v. 39 ff.).

405 that traitor Sisyphus: Sisphyus was the founder of Corinth and his name was a byword for treachery, for which his punishment was to roll a stone up a hill for eternity in the Underworld, only to have it run down before it could reach the top.

406 grandchild of the Sun: two of the Sun's children were Aeetes, Medea's father, and the witch Circe. The flying chariot in which Medea makes her getaway is a present to her from the Sun (1321–2). Medea's descent from him endows her with an elemental force.

408–9 women … of all bad deeds: the sympathetic assessment of women in Medea's first great speech (214–66) is here reversed.

410–45 the Chorus's confident belief that women will win honour while men will assume the reputation of faithlessness, like its picture of Medea as a pathetic victim, will not be confirmed by the play's action.

421–6 the Muses of yesteryear's poets … lyre-song: there is certainly misogynistic Greek poetry by male poets. Yet the chorus ignores the fact that a number of Greek poets were women, i.e. Sappho, Corinna, Praxilla, and Telesilla, and these naturally wrote from the female point of view.

446–64 I have noticed … badly towards you: Jason's speech is of an ineffable smugness. Presumably Euripides is aiming to enhance sympathy for Medea.

Page 45 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 478–9 you were sent … field of death: Aeetes had said that he would give Jason the Golden Fleece if he yoked two fire-breathing bulls and ploughed a field and sowed it with dragon's teeth (which Jason was unaware would produce a crop of armed men). Medea saw him safely through these ordeals.

486 I killed Pelias: see n. at 9–10.

519 on the body put no stamp: the metaphor is from the stamp on a coin. The difficulty of assessing a man's true nature is a common theme in Euripides (e.g. at Electra, 367–90).

523–5 escape the wearisome storm … edges of his sail: more nautical imagery. See n. at 278–9.

527 Aphrodite: Helen in the Trojan Women used this argument (940–50). According to her, it was not she who caused the Trojan War but the force of love represented by Aphrodite.

536–8 you live in the land of Greece … whim of the mighty: Euripides' Athenian audience would have had much sympathy with Jason's argument here. Yet its response would surely have been coloured by the fact that it finds expression on the lips of so unsympathetic a character.

543 Orpheus: the most magical of singers, Orpheus had been with Jason on the Argo.

555 It was not … that I hated sleeping with you: the theme of the sexually slighted woman, to be developed devastatingly at the end of the speech (568–75). Jason's insensitivity is breathtaking.

563–7 by producing brothers … those that are to be born: a Greek audience would have found Jason's argument here unconvincing. The legitimate family would have sought ways of marginalizing the illegitimate one. Cf. Hippolytus. 305–10.

573–4 The human race … free from every evil: cf. Hippolytus, 616–24.

613 tokens of introduction: these were knuckle-bones cut in half. Your host could see if his half fitted with the one given to you by the friend who had passed it on to you.

618 A bad man's gifts can bring no good: proverbial.

627–42 When love comes … women's marriages: 'moderation in all things' is a common Greek tenet. The Chorus can see where Medea's intemperate love has led her. (See n. at 125.) Cypris is another name for Aphrodite. See n. at Hippolytus 2 (p. 180).

Page 46 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 642 a sharp judge: and so able to distinguish the unions free from war and spare them from attack.

663 s.d.: Aegeus, king of Athens, passes through Corinth on his way back from Apollo's oracle at Delphi. He has probably come by boat from Itea, the port below Delphi. His arrival is very happily timed from Medea's point of view.

667–707 stichomythia: see Introduction, p. xxxii.

668 the navel of the earth: Zeus is said to have released two eagles from opposite ends of the earth. They met above Delphi, which was thus regarded as at the centre of the earth, just as the navel is at the centre of the body.

669 I wanted to know how I could beget offspring: is it Aegeus' childlessness that gives Medea the idea for her terrible revenge (cf. n. at 329)?

679–81 Not to unloose … the hearth of my fathers: Aegeus must abstain from sexual intercourse until he reaches home.

683 Trozen: see Map of the Greek World p. xlvi.

694 a woman who supplants me: the theme of the sexually slighted woman.

710 this your beard and your knees: see n. at 65.

730 I want to be … and my hosts alike: if she contrives to make her getaway from Corinth, Medea will be Aegeus' guest. At the moment, since Aegeus is in Corinth, Creon is his host.

743 It is indeed safer for me …: Aegeus is convinced by Medea's prudent argument.

746–7 Swear by the land of the Earth and … the Sun: Medea chooses these two elemental gods for Aegeus to swear by. cf. nn. at 57 and 406.

764 light of the Sun: see previous n.

769–70 haven … stern-cable: nautical imagery. See n. at 278–9. At this pivotal moment of the tragedy, the nautical imagery is suddenly halted. Medea has resolved upon her grisly plot, and now a new theme enters the play, that of hands (785, 857, 899, 940, 959, 1071, 1141, 1206, 1234, 1245, 1284, 1309, 1365, in addition to the references below). This will lend a ghastly intimacy to the rest of the tragedy. Earlier Medea has used her own, and her children's hands, exploitatively, to lay claim to the ties of friendship through supplication (324, 339, 709–10; cf. 898–9). Already she has amorally abused that key Greek concept. But now, possessed of an appalling certitude, she uses her hands to furnish the props for her

Page 47 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 own grim play. She hands over to her children the fatal gifts (956), which they proceed to hand over to Glauce (973). With her own hands she murders her children, whose hands she has earlier kissed (1070). And she will not allow Jason to touch their corpses with his hands (1412), though she will bury them with hers (1378). Formerly adrift, she is now triumphantly in control. The play's focus has narrowed from the wide world of Medea's uncertainties, which had centred on Corinth, to the horrific actions of her hands. (See n. at 1122–3 for the renewal of the theme of travel.)

773 Don't expect to receive my words with pleasure: Medea knows full well that the Chorus will be appalled at her plans.

792–3 I shall kill the children, my own ones: a chilling statement, yet with a stab of poignancy.

809 dangerous to my enemies and good to my friends: D. L. Page quotes Lessing: 'Moral excellence in ancient Greece consisted no less in unremitting hatred of your foes than in unalterable love towards your friends.' See n. at 267.

813 I forbid you to do this: the voice of the Chorus, hitherto so supportive, comes across here with great moral authority (cf. 853–5).

824–50 Descendants of Erechtheus … give you a home: the Chorus sings in celebration of Athens, where all is wisdom, culture, and love. Athens had looked at the end of the Aegeus scene as if it would assure a happy ending for the play, but now it seems likely to be forced to shelter a polluted infanticide. Erechtheus was an Athenian hero; the nine Muses, the inspirational forces behind all the arts, lived on Mount Helicon in Boeotia but proved to be at the height of their powers in Athens; the Athenian river Cephisus is associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of fertility and flowers. Can this joyously civilized city receive an unholy child-murderer? The response of the first Athenian audience to this Ode in praise of then city sung by actors portraying Corinthian women would have been a complex one, for Athens and Corinth were the bitterest of enemies in 431 BC.

869 Jason: she could not bring herself to say his name in their first scene together. Now she can use it to suggest that there is still sympathy between them.

899–905 Ah me! … fill with tears: a passage of enormous pathos. Medea weeps for her children, who will not live a long life. Jason will not die today but they will.

910 a husband who traffics in contraband love: the theme of the sexually slighted woman.

916–24 I think that you will yet live … what I have just said: the dramatic irony is particularly intense here as Jason visualizes a fulfilled and successful life for the children and Medea knows that she will cut short the possibility of such a future (cf. 930–1, 1029–35).

Page 48 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 943–4 Certainly … I think I shall persuade her: supremely confident in his skills as a charmer, he has no idea of where his male vanity is leading him.

956 hands: the theme of hands, with the terrible intimacy of human contact, now comes into the ascendant. See n. at 769–70.

1002–4 Mistress … all peace for them: the Tutor's blithe cheerfulness carries a poignant charge of irony.

1015–16 your children will bring you home … I shall bring others to peace: there is a subtext here which is hard to reproduce in translation. The Greek for 'bring you home' could mean 'bring you down to the Underworld'. Medea then hints that it is others, i.e. her children, whom she herself will bring to the Underworld.

1035 an enviable lot for mankind: in the ancient world parents felt the desire that their children would outlive them particularly strongly, since they would thus be assured of the proper burial rites which would admit them to the Underworld.

1053–5 Those for whom … a matter for them: in a grimly horrific touch Medea here adapts the formula that preceded a ritual, warning unsuitable persons to keep away. It is a blasphemous distortion of the real nature of this act of vengeance upon Jason for her to regard the murder of her children as a sacrifice.

1056–80 Ah, Ah, do not … the greatest evils for mankind: I do not agree with the editor of the Oxford Classical Text that these lines are inauthentic. They seem to me totally in accord with the emotional fluctuations which make this great speech so moving. A strong case for the defence, which even so acknowledges the problems, is B. Seidensticker, 'Euripides, Medea 1056–1080, an Interpolation?' in Cabinet of the Muses: Essays on Honor of T. G. Rosenmeyer (Scholars Press, Atlanta, Ga., 1990).

1062 There's no alternative—they must die: Medea feels that, now that the children have returned from giving their gifts, they will fall victims to retaliation from the Corinthians and so she may as well kill them herself (cf. 1236–41). But is she right in this? Their involvement in her plot was totally innocent, and, had Medea spared them, Jason could surely have protected them. See 1303–5.

1073 elsewhere: i.e. the Underworld.

1080 it is fury that leads to the greatest evils for mankind: Medea's final words in this speech make it clear that she is fully aware that her rage against Jason has driven her on an evil course.

Page 49 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 1083–4 greater dilemmas than the female sex | ought to explore: the feminist voice that spoke so loudly earlier in the play (see e.g. 410–30) is now distinctly muted.

1090–111 And I say that those of mortals … of his children: the Chorus deals with the tragic consequences of having children. It has been reduced to extreme pessimism.

1122–3 take flight … Use any means of transport you can find: the theme of travel is renewed (see n. at 769–70). Medea is, of course, going to flee neither by land nor by sea but through the air, the element of the divine. As the tragedy opens out again from its intense concentration on Medea's hands, it defines her anew, no longer as a woman but as a demon. See nn. at 1260, 1278–80, 1316 s.d., 1342–3.

1133 But take your time: she wishes to savour the grisly story, and the Messenger's speech is certainly replete with gory detail. The gloating Medea is a repellent figure.

1156 And when she saw the adornments, she could not resist: the vacuous and childish Glauce is well characterized.

1161 a shining mirror: made of highly polished metal.

1171–2 perhaps thinking … had come upon her: the old maidservant immediately assumed that Glauce's frantic rush for the throne to support herself and her near-collapse were caused by a sudden frenzy sent by a god—most naturally Pan, a rustic deity, but possibly any god.

1210 let me die with you, my child: a wish that is only too speedily fulfilled.

1245 where life's pain begins: the Greek uses the metaphor of the post which marked both the start and the finish of a running race. The child-murder is both an end (of the children's lives) and a beginning (of Medea's grief for them).

1251–2 O Earth and radiant brightness | of the Sun: the Earth and the Sun, the Zeus-born light (1258), are here invoked at the tragedy's climactic moment. Will these elemental forces intervene to stop the unholy slaughter? The answer is no. The play is emptied of any divine force working for good. See n. at 57.

1260 Fury: Medea is seen no longer as a woman but as a Fury, one of a number of hideous divinities who lived in the Underworld and punished offences against the family. Medea is indeed punishing Jason's offences against her family, but only by destroying it herself. She has been dehumanized and demonized. Cf. 1278–80 and 1342–3.

1270 s.d.: with the exception of the suicide of Ajax in Sophocles' play of that name, violent action always takes place off stage in Greek tragedy.

Page 50 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 1278–80 stone | or iron: the dehumanized Medea.

1284 Ino: Ino brought up Dionysus, the son of Zeus by her sister Semele. Hera, Zeus' wife, drove her mad out of jealousy and she jumped into the sea. In Euripides' version, she killed her two children and it was this that drove her to suicide.

1304 it is my children's life that I have come to save: see n. at 1062.

1316 s.d.: Medea swings into view, her dragon-drawn chariot supported by the crane which was generally used in Greek theatres for the occasional aerial appearance of gods. The demonic Medea has usurped their element.

1321–2 the chariot that the Sun, father of my father, has given me: far from intervening to stop the infanticide (see n. at 1251–2), Medea's grandfather the Sun has provided her with her getaway vehicle—as well as with the adornments that have destroyed Glauce (954–5).

1327–8 can you look upon the sun and earth: see nn. at 57, 1251–2, 1321–2, 1387–8. The elemental powers do nothing to prevent the murders.

1334 after killing your brother by your hearth: the usual story of the ship-board mutilation of Apsyrtus is varied to emphasize the impiety of Medea, who is here represented as killing her brother at the holiest part of the family home.

1335 the Argo, that fair-prowed ship: Jason looks back to the great days of his triumphant voyage. It has led him to this.

1342–3 no woman but a lioness, more savage than Etruscan Scylla: the dehumanization of Medea. Scylla was a monster who lived on the Italian coast on the Straits of Messina on the East side of the Etruscan sea. Female in form, she had six dogs' heads around the lower part of her body.

1361–77 And you too feel pain … lament them: stichomythia. It is striking that before this passage there have been only four lines of stichomythia between this confrontational pair (605–8). Euripides now uses it to stress their total alienation from each other.

1368 a small hurt for a woman? the theme of the sexually slighted woman. Note Jason's response (1369).

1381 this land of Sisyphus: Corinth. Cf. n. at 405.

1383 this impious murder: Medea admits the impiety of her act but hopes to lay the pollution to rest.

Page 51 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019 1386–7 die a humiliating death … the Argo: Medea usurps the role of the god who is likely to appear to foretell the future at the end of a Euripides play, and she correctly prophesies Jason's ignominious end. Either he was visiting Hera's temple where he had dedicated the stern of the Argo or he was sleeping underneath the ship. A timber fell off and killed him.

1389 the Fury: the Fury that Jason hopes will be roused against Medea from the Underworld by her shedding of her children's blood.

1392 the treacherous host: Jason had formerly been her male protector in Corinth (see n. at 255–8) but had abandoned her.

1395 Wait till you grow old: see n. at 1035.

1399–1400 I long … poor wretch that I am: Jason discovers how deeply he had loved his children.

1412 hands: the theme of hands finds its conclusion.

1415–19 Zeus on Olympus … what has happened here: though the first line is different, this is in effect the 'stock' ending of five of Euripides' plays.

Page 52 of 52 DOI of this work: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.div1.36 https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199537969.book.1/actrade-9780199537969-div1-36 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARLY EDITIONS ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out single copies of portions of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: University of Oxford; date: 18 July 2019